A conversation with Roosevelt Montás . . .

Upcoming Tuesday, April 26, 12- 2 p.m., Conference Center, 7th floor, University Hall, a conversation about why General Education and Great Books matter!

Our much-sought-after featured guest is Roosevelt Montás, Senior Lecturer in the American Studies Program at Columbia University and former director of Columbia College’s Core Curriculum, whose recent book, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, makes a powerful case for the value of a Great Books curriculum and the liberal arts more broadly.

Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York City when he was just shy of 12 years old, knowing no English. Through a series of encounters with influential mentors—including Plato himself, whose Apology, Crito, and Phaedo he found in the trash near his apartment in Queens—he would eventually find himself in the freshman class at Columbia; he went on to earn a PhD in English at Columbia and become director of the Columbia College Core Curriculum, the last remaining required Great Books sequence at any American university. His memoir has garnered rave reviews in a variety of venues on all sides of the political spectrum, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and Commentary Magazine. 

The event is sponsored by the CHSS Dean’s Office, the Institute for the Humanities, the MSU Honors Program, the Office of Undergraduate Education, and the Department of Classics and General Humanities.